VANCOUVER, B.C. - The Olympic charter specifically says that its Winter Games events should happen in conjunction with snow and ice.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wasn't aware of that when he once asked Juan Antonio Samaranch, formerly the head of the International Olympic Committee, if hockey could be included in the summer Games.

"I didn't get to finish the sentence," Bettman said Thursday.

Now the concept of NHL players in the Olympics, a phenomenon that has lifted the hockey competition from an occasional Miracle to nightly magic, is also hanging out there like a dead participle.

With the next Winter Games slated for the Russian resort of Sochi in 2014, there is no guarantee, and maybe not much chance, that the pros will play.

Well, at least one will. Alex Ovechkin has already informed the world and his Washington Capitals employers that he will be in Sochi, consequences aside. Presumably other Russian NHL players will join him.

Bettman preferred to push the issue into the sideboards because, after all, the tournament that Canada coach Mike Babcock called "maybe the best of all-time" has barely started.

"It doesn't mean we're going to go, it doesn't mean we're not going to go," the commissioner said. "We have plenty of time. The IOC hasn't even awarded the broadcasting rights yet.

"At Torino (in 2006) we basically went at the last minute. We were just coming off our lockout and we didn't know what we were going to do. So it isn't timely. We need to debrief and make it better and figure out what makes sense."

What doesn't make sense, from the standpoint of excellence and the pursuit of it, is to turn the Games back over to North American amateurs and European professionals.

The NHL Olympic experiment is a stupendous hit. There have been six semifinalists in the three competitions. By chance, all those rematches will happen here Sunday: Canada-U.S., Finland-Sweden and the Czech Republic-Russia.

There also have been seismic upsets, like Switzerland over Canada in 2006 and Belarus over Sweden in 2002. There have been huge contributions from the Euro pros, like Dominik Hasek's helpers on the victorious Czech team in 1998, and there has been controversy and raw emotion.

Do we really want a return to pre-1998, when the U.S. kept fumbling its chance to re-create Lake Placid? Do we really want amateur coaches who squirm under the worldwide glare, and college players who should be developing themselves in 2,000-seat rinks?

It's up to Bettman and the players, and their collective bargaining agreement is done after the 2011 NHL season.

Rene Fasel, Bettman's equivalent with the governing International Ice Hockey Federation, suggested to Bettman that the hockey competition remain in the Winter Games and that basketball, volleyball and "other indoor sports" do the same.

Apparently Fasel wasn't aware of how difficult it's been to get the human conglomerates of the NBA to donate their summers to the services of the red, white and blue, never mind taking a break from the riveting regular season.

Bettman laughed and shook his head at that.

But it's clear that he'd rather play this thing in July than try to shoehorn it in the midst of the 82-game grind – or, God forbid, shave off 10 regular season games to make room. The Columbus-Nashville rivalry might suffer, you know.

"You play, what, 5,000 regular season games in the NHL (over four years)?" Fasel asked Bettman. "It's not just about the IIHF or the Olympics. We need you, 100 percent."

Not even Bettman's fiercest Canadian critics can argue that the NHL is far healthier and more artistic than it used to be, and much of that came from a gutsy season-long lockout. But Bettman's dismissive manner does nothing to persuade those critics, and on Thursday he couldn't help but sound as if he felt the league was doing the Olympics a favor by being here.

"On this Feb. 14 we had played 80 more regular season games than on Feb. 14 last year," he said, explaining how the Olympics had compressed the NHL schedule. "I'm just saying this to explain. It's absolutely possible that we can do a lot of things together. But we do not operate in a vacuum.

"This costs us money. If it were just for business, we wouldn't be here. This disrupts our season. We don't make any money off it. We're here because it's good for the game. The value of the contracts of the NHL players that are participating in this tournament is $2.1 billion. We have turned over, for two weeks, control of the most important asset of our game. That's our players."

And this is the ultimate conflict between professional sports and the Olympics. Is there anything more valuable than money?

If Alex Ovechkin finds himself skating figure-eights around teenagers in Sochi, we'll know the answer.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.